Intuit to Scoop Up Mint.com

The personal financial management empire that is Intuit is about to get a bit larger with news that it will acquire PFM site Mint.com.According to an article in TechCrunch, the deal is valued at $170 million.

Aite Group senior analyst Ron Shevlin commented on the news, which, says TechCrunch, will be "announced in the next few days."

Although Shevlin said in a statement that the acquisition is a win for Mint.com, he is unclear how it will benefit Intuit.

"This deal is a huge win for Mint.com. It represents an admission on its part that its business model wasn't sustainable over the long term. For Intuit, the benefit of the deal is less clear," noted Shevlin. "Mint claims to have 1.4 million registered users, which means Intuit is paying approximately $120/user. But since none of those users pay to use the product, there's no immediate revenue from them. While Mint's interface is superior to Intuit's FinanceWorks, and has functionality that FinanceWorks doesn't have, it's not clear why Intuit would pay $170 million to acquire those capabilities."